Direct in the sense of here and now, immediate. Direct writing like this, I think, is beyond us. The best we can ever hope is the oblique; a version; a testimony; a listening –
Of something past and somewhere else. Where we no longer are; a childhood; a great city; a region as vast as Russia, to which we long to return, but are also afraid to, the fear of what has changed.
And with this knowledge, an exile with discernment, a nostalgia without bitterness, oblique writing is a way of looking back with one eye, the other set upon the road –
Which may at times, iron stylus held firmly in the hand, appear almost as good as direct.
mmj